Note: Scores are from school years 2004-05 through 2007-08. There were 119 teams last year in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

The San Diego State football program has been penalized with the loss of another scholarship this year – its 14th in four seasons – after posting the nation's 14th-worst score in the NCAA Academic Progress Rate program.

Still, SDSU's four-year APR score of 914 marks improvement from last year, when the Aztecs ranked fifth-worst out of 119 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams with an APR of 889. Last year, SDSU football lost six scholarships because of its subpar APR. In 2006, it lost four, and in 2007 it lost three.

“We are in general pleased with the improvement across the board,” SDSU Athletic Director Jeff Schemmel said. “It's obvious we still have a ways to go in our multiyear rate, especially in sports like football, baseball and men's basketball. But I like the improvement.”

He cited the improved “academic culture” nurtured by Colleen Evans, SDSU's director of student-athlete academic support services. Eleven of SDSU's 18 sports programs posted their highest APR rates, including baseball and football. Four teams – women's basketball, women's cross country, women's golf and softball – received perfect 1,000 scores for 2007-08. The women's golf program was honored with an NCAA public recognition award for posting a perfect 1,000 score on its multiyear rate.

SDSU football and baseball have been penalized with scholarship reductions in all four years of the APR penalty program. SDSU baseball has been docked this year about half a scholarship after posting an APR score of 903. No other SDSU teams were penalized.

The APR measures the academic eligibility and retention of student-athletes over a rolling four-year period. This year's APR includes the school years 2004-05 through 2007-08 – the last two seasons under SDSU coach Tom Craft and the first two under Chuck Long.

The NCAA, which released the data yesterday, noted overall national improvement in its three troubled areas: baseball, men's basketball and football, each of which improved by 17 or more points over the past five years in the single-year APR. The average four-year football APR for FBS schools was 941, up from 925 for 2003-04.

“It's a real sign that academic reform is in place in the NCAA and that our institutions are responding extremely well,” said Walter Harrison, chairman of the NCAA Committee on Academic Performance. “As a result, student-athletes are succeeding at higher and higher rates.”

Only 12 of 119 FBS teams were subject to penalties, including SDSU and San Jose State, which was penalized with 10 scholarship reductions and limited to 16 hours of practice time, four hours under the maximum.

Stanford (984) and Air Force (983) had the nation's top football APRs among FBS schools.

For the first time, the NCAA will penalize some teams with a postseason ban because of substandard APR: Centenary men's basketball, Tennessee-Chattanooga football and Jacksonville State football, which has an appeal pending. Each had been put on notice to improve its APR or face further sanctions.

NCAA President Myles Brand called these bans a “watershed” moment in the academic reform movement.

Last year, SDSU also had been put on notice that it could receive practice time limitations and additional scholarship losses if it did not improve. Because they improved, the Aztecs only suffered a one-scholarship penalty. Its penalty means SDSU will be limited to 84 football scholarships, one under the maximum.

Heavy roster attrition under Craft had led to a poor APR in recent years. In 2005, SDSU had the nation's third-worst APR in football (848). Since then, SDSU has beefed up its academic support for athletes and focused on recruiting better students in football. SDSU also has installed a department-wide class-attendance policy that penalizes athletes for skipping class.

“It makes sure kids go to class and do their work,” Schemmel said.

Nationally, the program still seems to favor the richest schools. Of the 12 FBS football teams subject to penalties, only one (Ole Miss) is from a conference with an automatic berth in the lucrative Bowl Championship Series.

“Look, the truth of the matter is, if you're going to participate in high-level intercollegiate athletics, you have to provide for academic opportunities for the students,” Brand said. “And that's not inexpensive.”

To calculate the APR, each athlete generally receives one point per semester for remaining academically eligible and another for remaining at that school. Total points earned is divided by total points possible on a 1,000-point scale. A team below 925 can suffer a scholarship loss if it loses a student-athlete who would not have been academically eligible had he or she returned.